Goodbye TTS-1 the Movie.

[John Vere]

Spent a few days on this researching replacements for the TTS-1. Seems you quickly find yourself in 1998. Almost all players are from that era and others are just repackaged sound font players. 
At the heart of it seems to be Roland. Is it just me or did anyone else notice that Cakewalk just removed the only 2 GM midi players we had. First the MS Wavetable now the TTS-1 

 

[User 905133]

Nice tribute to the TTS-1.  

[Glenn Stanton]

then there is the coolsoft virtual synth

https://coolsoft.altervista.org/en/virtualmidisynth

i used to have it installed when i wanted something with more control vs the MS synth.

[John Vere]

If you actually watched the video it gets a mention. Biggest problem is I have bought software from that company before and it offered no support when things don't work. It also installed a bunch of bloatware so I avoided it based on past experiences. My guess is it will sound like all the rest. 

[Glenn Stanton]

thanks! i hadn't watched it (but did now). since i have the TTS-1 as well as the Coyote WT and the VSTSynthFont if i need a quick GM MIDI i should be good to go.

one of the things i use TTS-1 for is to quickly capture the markers and tempo changes from the MIDI i export from Hookpad (hookpad.hooktheory.com). then import my regular recording template. re-arrange the MIDI into my normal instruments and i'm ready to record, arrange etc...

Edited March 1 by Glenn Stanton

[Canopus]

Interesting comparison. I even downloaded the same MIDI file from freemidi.org and recorded it through my Roland SC-88 Pro so I could compare my old faithful to the others.

[T Boog]

5 hours ago, John Vere said:

Is it just me or did anyone else notice that Cakewalk just removed the only 2 GM midi players

 Hi John. In a recent comment someone questioned if the bakers had advanced knowledge that the TTS-1 would be coming to an end.

Well, a few months ago I literally asked one of the bakers(I think his name was Noel) if the TTS-1 would be included in the new Sonar and he not only said yes, I think his exact words were "of course".

So yeah, it seems clear they didn't see it coming. Cheers gents!

 

[John Vere]

1 hour ago, Canopus said:

Interesting comparison. I even downloaded the same MIDI file from freemidi.org and recorded it through my Roland SC-88 Pro so I could compare my old faithful to the others.

So how did it do? I found the SC 55 was not that great. The bass especially was very farty. I still like my Korg better.

Id be curious to hear a sample from the VST version and a forum member did offer to do it but didn’t have time until this weekend. 
 

What was a big surprise was that the MS wavetable wasn’t near as bad as I remember it being. 

[Canopus]

9 minutes ago, John Vere said:

So how did it do? I found the SC 55 was not that great. The bass especially was very farty. I still like my Korg better.

I think it did pretty well for something that's almost 30 years old, but YMMV. Anyway, here's the result as a raw mp3.

[Promidi]

Another thought I had is that a higher tier of Cakewalk might actually include Roland Canvas VA. 

Of course, there would have to be some negotiations with Roland to allow this, and what the licence fee from each sale of Cakewalk Sonar to Roland would be.

Edited March 2 by Promidi

[Jonathan Sasor]

8 hours ago, John Vere said:

Is it just me or did anyone else notice that Cakewalk just removed the only 2 GM midi players we had. First the MS Wavetable now the TTS-1 

The MS Wavetable synth was never in the app itself. It may show up depending on what driver mode you're in, but it's not really a great solution. The synth is part of Windows. It functions exactly the same as if you were using a physical external MIDI module, but without an obvious way on how to pump that back into the app if you needed. 

TTS-1 was requested to be removed by Roland. In any case, we were not able to maintain it as it's Roland's source code, and it's been noted for having increasing stability issues as time has gone along. 

 

You're definitely right about very quickly feeling like you're in 1998. Not too many people use that kind of workflow these days. Not unless you're working with hardware modules. 

[John Vere]

3 hours ago, Jonathan Sasor said:

You're definitely right about very quickly feeling like you're in 1998. Not too many people use that kind of workflow these days. Not unless you're working with hardware modules. 

Not hardware but GM midi files. 

I was surprised when a few people posted that the MS Wavetable was gone. I really didn’t think anyone used it.

And even though you guys might feel GM is dead I don’t think so.

I think the way GM was so built into Cakewalk was probably what built up your largest loyalty base. 

Nothing DID midi better than Cakewalk. So I guess that has  now been downgraded with this move.
 

I know it’s unavoidable and you’ll even find me on file with lots of crash dumps from the TTS-1. 
 
I personally think it’s in the company’s best interests to find a replacement even if it’s real simple.

Why not do like Band in a Box. They include 3 different players as options. 
Your 2 closest competitors Cubase and Studio one both have GM players built in. 
There’s a growing market of people who play live music using backing tracks. GM is part of that. 

[Jonathan Sasor]

5 hours ago, John Vere said:

Not hardware but GM midi files. 

I was surprised when a few people posted that the MS Wavetable was gone. I really didn’t think anyone used it.

And even though you guys might feel GM is dead I don’t think so.

I think the way GM was so built into Cakewalk was probably what built up your largest loyalty base. 

Nothing DID midi better than Cakewalk. So I guess that has  now been downgraded with this move.
 

I know it’s unavoidable and you’ll even find me on file with lots of crash dumps from the TTS-1. 
 
I personally think it’s in the company’s best interests to find a replacement even if it’s real simple.

Why not do like Band in a Box. They include 3 different players as options. 
Your 2 closest competitors Cubase and Studio one both have GM players built in. 
There’s a growing market of people who play live music using backing tracks. GM is part of that. 

It's not as if TTS1 was removed because we don't think GM is a viable workflow. Plus as I said, the MS Wavetable synth isn't something that's ever been a part of the app itself. We simply expose whatever MIDI ports are available in Windows. There have been no changes in the app to remove that.

We definitely would like to have some kind of alternative in the future. 

Personally, I wouldn't want to rely on a GM player for backing tracks. There's much better sounding alternatives, but obviously that's subjective on a few levels.

[Ludwig Bouwer]

If I may contribute my two South African cents (which is about 0,0010 USD at current depressing exchange rates):
From a music production (music producer/sound engineer) point of view, a GM player is actually very valuable as I (and I'm sure many others) often get presented with midi files extracted from all kinds of keyboard workstations, backtrack websites as well as horrors like Sibelius. To get an instant playback is pretty important actually. 

[John Vere]

4 hours ago, Jonathan Sasor said:

Personally, I wouldn't want to rely on a GM player for backing tracks. There's much better sounding alternatives, but obviously that's subjective on a few levels.

Exactly. I remember back in 2004 when I first started using Cakewalk and I tried the TTS-1 back then and decided it wasn’t for me mostly because the bass and drums didn’t sound very good compared to my Korg 05R/W 
I think the SI instruments were the first new members of my digital band. 

We often get posts on the forum here from people who are not at all interested in trying other instruments. I think it’s just over their heads to work that way. They are used to using midi players. My most viewed Cakewalk Tutorial is the one about the TTS-1 
 

There’s a bigger fan club than one can imagine. I’m already getting comments from people who are upset. 
But I just released a second video with info on how to replace it or make sure you will have it available in the future. 

 

[T Boog]

6 hours ago, John Vere said:

the SI instruments were the first new members of my digital band

I'm guessing the SI instruments will remain on the new Sonar huh John?

I LOVE the SI Strings. Please, for God's sake, tell me Roland doesn't own that too ?

[John Vere]

5 hours ago, T Boog said:

I'm guessing the SI instruments will remain on the new Sonar huh John?

I LOVE the SI Strings. Please, for God's sake, tell me Roland doesn't own that too ?

the SI instruments are owned by Bandlab. This is why they were always included. With the TTS-1 gone they are all that is left. 

But we are told the plans are to bring back a few of the old plug ins most of us still own and use for new users to purchase or possibly they will be included for free in top versions of Sonar which was like it used to be. 
 

[msmcleod]

@John Vere - DXi synths running in CbB are never 32 bit. 64 bit applications can only use 64 bit DXi's, and 32 bit applications can only use 32 bit DXis.
 

[John Vere]

3 hours ago, msmcleod said:

@John Vere - DXi synths running in CbB are never 32 bit. 64 bit applications can only use 64 bit DXi's, and 32 bit applications can only use 32 bit DXis.
 

Thanks I didn’t know that but it makes sense because bitbridge is for VST’s.
 

there wasn’t much info available about it.  And what info I did find  said 32 bit.

 And of course plug in colour in the browser shows as either 32 bit or DX.

I guess the giveaway is Band in a box installed it in the 64 bit VST folder.
But I’ll add a comment to clear that up, not that anyone reads the comments in YouTube. 
 

Edited March 3 by John Vere